City maintained their perfect start to the Premier League season with a remarkable 5-3 win over Sunderland at the Etihad Stadium.
Antoine Semenyo scored twice, with Enzo Fernandez, Rayan Cherki and Erling Haaland also on target as Enzo Maresca’s side made it five league wins from five.
Sunderland were anything but passive opponents. Brian Brobbey scored a hat-trick for the visitors and twice brought them level during a game in which City’s attacking quality was matched by some unusually vulnerable defending.
City come through eight-goal Etihad thriller
Fernandez opened the scoring after nine minutes with a clever free-kick, but the lead lasted only three minutes. Brobbey found space inside the area and beat Gianluigi Donnarumma to make it 1-1.
Cherki put City back in front in the 29th minute before Brobbey responded again four minutes later. Sunderland were finding far too much room and City, for all their threat going the other way, struggled to get a grip on the game.
Semenyo changed the mood shortly before half-time, scoring in the 43rd minute to give City a 3-2 lead at the break.
The summer signing struck again 12 minutes after the restart, converting from Iliman Ndiaye’s pass to give Maresca’s side their first two-goal cushion of the afternoon.
It did not last long.
Brobbey completed his hat-trick in the 58th minute, becoming the first Sunderland player to score a Premier League treble since Jermain Defoe in 2016. At 4-3, the Etihad was braced for another twist.
City eventually found the goal that settled it. Haaland scored in the 81st minute and, after a VAR check, the fifth was confirmed.
That finally saw off Sunderland, but Maresca will know his side made life considerably harder for themselves than it needed to be. City conceded three at home and never looked entirely comfortable against Brobbey, yet at the other end they carried more than enough firepower to get away with it.
Five Premier League games have now brought five wins for Maresca. This was comfortably the wildest of them.
Man City XI: Donnarumma; Nunes, Guehi, Dias, Gvardiol; Anderson, Fernandez; Ndiaye, Cherki, Semenyo; Haaland. (Subs: Rulli, Allan, Khusanov, Kovacic, Ait-Nouri, O’Reilly, Rico Lewis, Vitor Reis, Bouaddi)
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